Stockholm Syndrome
by threesummerdays
Summary: The day Penny kidnaps him, he's not exactly thrilled... Warning: pure fluff.
1. Chapter 1

The day Penny kidnaps him, he's not exactly thrilled. He's sitting there, minding his own business, writing equations on his board, when she bursts in, hair swinging wildly, and says, "Get in my car."

He stares at her, gestures pointedly at the door, at the board, back at the door. "You didn't knock," he says finally, his jaw dropping slowly.

"I know," she says, waving her hand casually. "Sorry or whatever. But seriously, get in my car."

"Penny, I am clearly working on an equation," he says, gesturing at the board again. "I cannot simply get into your car willy-nilly."

"Sheldon Lee Cooper, if you do not come with me to my car right now, I will call your mother and _make_ you come with me."

He scrambles to put down his pen and grab his keys. "As I have said before," he says as she pushes him out the door without his bag, "you must remember that with great power comes…"

"Great responsibility," she finishes, pushing him down the stairs. "Got it, Spidey. Now let's go."

She belts him into the car herself, makes sure he's not going anywhere, climbs in herself, clicks the belt into place, starts the car. He's about to make a comment about the check engine light but she shuts him up with a look that warns him not to say anything at all. He keeps his yap shut until they get to the freeway. His grip tightens on the door handle, he can't stop the words.

"Why are we getting on the freeway?"

Penny's not so tense any more, so she says, "We're going somewhere."

"Why?"

"Because I felt like it."

"I hardly think that's a logical explanation," he says, glancing in her direction. When she doesn't respond, he adds, "Most people go places because they have to do something there."

"And sometimes they just go for a drive," she says, checking over her shoulder as she merges into the next lane.

"And sometimes people jump off bridges," he counters, "but that doesn't make it safe or logical."

She looks over at him, face scrunched up in confusion. He shakes his head – it didn't make sense to him, either, once it got out of his mouth. But she doesn't say anything and he figures he shouldn't either, so he tries to keep silent for a little bit longer.

When she starts to pull off the freeway in the direction of the mall, Sheldon can't keep his comments down any longer. He starts babbling about how much he dislikes the mall, starts to promise never to do whatever it was he clearly did to deserve punishment, tries to backpedal out of whatever it is he's done. But Penny laughs and keeps driving, pulls into the lot, unbuckles her seatbelt, tells him to do the same. He gets out of the car looking like a beaten puppy and she has to press a comforting hand on his arm to make sure he knows he's not in trouble.

She pulls him into Macy's, shows him a pair of shoes she's been looking at online, makes him ask the worker to find it in her size. The man, slick in his tie and slacks, looks at Sheldon's plaid shorts distastefully, asks what he needs. Sheldon shoves a pair of shoes at him, says he needs them in a size seven for that – and he points – woman there, says she has a shoe-buying disease. The man laughs like he doesn't mean it, says he'll be right back. Sheldon turns to say something to Penny, but she's sitting back in the chair laughing at him, says something about how he'll never get a date that way.

The worker comes back, box in hand, gives it to Penny, tell her the shoes will look great on such an exquisite pair of legs. Sheldon doesn't know what gets into him all of a sudden, but he turns on the guy, tells him to mind his own business, it's not his job to flirt with his customers who could very well be attached. The man backs off quickly, looking at Sheldon like he's crazy. Penny's eyebrows have come together, she's confused, but Sheldon doesn't say anything, just lets her try on her shoes. But she can tell he's watching the guy out of the corner of his eye.

By the time they get to Mrs. Fields, Penny's burning with curiosity, so she opens her mouth and asks.

"Why'd you get up in that guy's business like that?"

Sheldon stops and looks at her. "What does that mean?"

"Why'd you stop him from flirting with me?"

He sniffs gently. "Just because it's common for flirtatious customer service workers to gain more clients doesn't mean it's a practice I support."

She laughs and pays the girl at the counter, grabs the bag of cookies. "Just admit it – you don't like other guys flirting with me."

Sheldon doesn't answer, mainly because he doesn't know how. If he told her the truth, he'd have to agree, admit she was right. He doesn't like the thought of another man kissing her, holding her, being with her. He likes it right here by her side. But to say that would mean she was right, and he can't have that, so he shuts up.

When they pass Game Stop, Penny pauses like she expects him to ask to go in. He keeps walking. She's about to say something when she sees an uber-cute pair of shoes in the next store's window. She walks faster to catch up with him, drags him to the window to check out the shoes. She gets them, too.

It's been nearly three hours since she first took him hostage, and Penny's starting to get worried. He was supposed to fight her tooth and nail this whole time, but he's kept quiet. She's about to ask him if everything's okay when he points at some tech store and tells her to go there, he likes it there, he needs to pick something up. She sighs – he's back to normal – and pulls into the lot.

By hour number four, she's done shopping with him. He's anal about everything, even the packaging on a movie he's going to rip open as soon as he gets to the car. She glances at her watch, needs to stall for another hour, looks back at him as he argues with the cashier, tells him to shut up, they'll take this one. He looks at her and wants to say something, but she gives him her classic, "I can castrate you in two seconds" look, so he keeps his mouth shut.

When they get back into the car, she tells him she's ready to go home, and he's ready to say something, but he doesn't. They're driving in silence, listening to John Mayer playing on the radio, when he finally opens his mouth.

"I love you."

And he wants to slap himself because that's not the way it's supposed to come out, not even close, and he's waiting for her to slam on the brakes and ask him what the hell he meant, because he's kind of curious himself.

But she doesn't, she just smiles, says, "I hear that's called Stockholm syndrome."

"That's a definite possibility," he hears himself babbling, then his mouth keeps going with the history and there's an end to the silence.

When they pull into the building lot, Sheldon's ready to crawl under a rock and die, except he knows the science community couldn't survive without him, so he jumps out of the car and runs up the stairs, even though he hears Penny yelling after him not to go so fast. He gets to his apartment, pulls out his keys, tries to put one in with shaking hands, finally turns it and pushes the door open as she reaches the top step.

He walks in, shakes his head, knows he had kept a light on but now it's pitch black, and then someone (Leonard?) yells "Surprise!" and the lights come on to reveal everyone he knows (and considers friends) jumping out from behind the couch and kitchen island. He's stumbling backwards, but Penny's there pushing him back in, saying something about his birthday, he didn't even realize it was today, but there's a cake and presents and no pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey in sight – he's guessing he should thank _her_ for that, because he's pretty sure the guys would have done it just to torment him.

So the rest of the evening is spent in the company of his closest friends, plus some of their friends, and he's almost enjoying himself except that he keeps thinking about what he said to Penny in the car and he's wondering if it was a minor form of Stockholm or if he really meant it, and he's still confused when everyone starts to head home.

When it's just him and the guys plus Bernadette and Penny, Sheldon says he's ready to go to bed, thank you for the party, and Penny holds out her arms.

"Come on, Moonpie," she says grinning. "You've got to admit I was good at kidnapping you for a whole day."

"I'm hardly a child, Penny," he says, overlooking the part about her not calling him Moonpie. "You abducted me."

"Then give me a hug for successfully abducting you."

And he walks up to her and hugs her awkwardly, and then - and he can't figure out why he does it - he leans down and kisses her in front of the group, kisses her tight and solid on the lips, and he realizes that when he was wondering if it was Stockholm or if he really meant it when he said those three words earlier, he meant it. And he's pretty sure she's kissing him back when he hears Howard's catcall and Raj's whistle. Leonard doesn't say anything, and Sheldon's not sure how to take that, but Penny's pulling back and looking at him.

"Stockholm?" she asks, and he's sure that if he says something wrong, he's going to break her heart. So he tells her the truth.

"No."

And this time it's her that kisses him, and he realizes he doesn't mind kissing her back.


	2. Chapter 2

The day Sheldon kidnaps her, she's not exactly prepared. The man's had his license for five days and he's been offering to drive her everywhere. She figures it must be one of those male dominance problems, like when a girl can shoot a gun and the guy can't, so she lets it go. But when he marches into her apartment after a series of brisk knocks and tells her to get into his car, she's surprised. He usually warns her when he wants to go somewhere, plus he doesn't usually drive her around – something about protecting leaders of governments by never having the royal family travel in the same car or train or something Sheldony. If he'd marched in the day before when she was feeling like crap because of her allergies, she'd have told him to get the hell out of her apartment, but today he looks different, has a serious gleam in his eyes.

So when he says, "Get in my car," he's not joking around, he's not going to go "Bazinga!" right after. He's serious. So she grabs her stuff and hops down the stairs with him into his car (so weird to say that). He gets in, makes sure she's belted, starts the engine, heads onto the road toward the freeway. She's thinking he's taking her on a surprise trip to the mall to get some shoes – it's their six-month anniversary, after all – but he passes the exit, keeps driving.

She knows better than to ask now. When he wants to tell her what he's doing, he'll let her know, probably in four different languages, too, including Klingon. So she sits back and closes her eyes as he drives further away from their apartments.

When Penny wakes up, it's late afternoon and it looks like they're getting close to the beach. She still doesn't say anything, just in case he got lost, because Sheldon hates the beach, hates sand, wouldn't go there willingly. And she's just about to say so when he pulls off the exit and heads down a little road. She figures it's some comic book thing, doesn't say anything, watches the "Welcome to Santa Monica" sign flash by. As he pulls into a lot just off the beach, though, Penny can't help herself.

"Sheldon, what are we doing here? You hate the beach."

"But you like it," he says, staring at her, one eyebrow raised. She shrugs and looks down at herself.

"I'm not dressed for the beach," she says, wishing she had put her cute bikini in her purse, even though there's no way she could have guessed he'd take her here.

"We're not here for a swim, Penny," he says in his old "I'm so much smarter than you" voice. She rolls her eyes and steps out of the car. He scrambles out behind her, comes around to her side, grabs her hand.

She smiles a little because they've been working on the whole touching thing, especially since the whole relationship really started by touching, and he's been getting better. Sometimes he lets her hold his hand for a whole movie, although he usually pulls away halfway through and says something about germ breeding grounds. He still lets her kiss him, though, so the hard work hasn't been for nothing.

She's getting distracted by the thoughts of what they could do if he wasn't so crazy about human contact when he starts to pull her hand toward the beach. He's smiling, not the creepy Joker smile, but a real one, so she doesn't fight back, say she wants to lead. She's happy to follow him onto the sand. When he finally finds a perfect spot – "It must be the perfect ratio of sand to rock, Penny." – he pulls out a beach towel (where he hid that the whole walk is beyond her) and spreads it evenly on the ground. He motions for her to sit down, which she does, and quickly squats next to her.

"Do you want a drink?" he asks, his eyes shifting nervously from her eyes to her lips and back again.

She nods and takes advantage of his flustered state, drops a kiss on him, relishes the surprise in his eyes. His smile's shaky when he gets up and rushes over to get some drink from his car. Again, he's surprised her - she doesn't know how she missed the cooler he apparently had.

When he comes back, he presses a Coke into her hand and pops open his own, taking a quick swig. Penny can't help but laugh that he's the one drinking diet while she drinks regular. It's something he insists on, says drinking too much diet soda can kill you or something, but he's downing his pretty quick, she's tempted to say something but she doesn't. So they sit on the beach, drinking sodas, just enjoying each other's presence.

Somewhere in the midst of watching guys fling themselves into the water to impress girls, his hand creeps across the gap of towel and finds hers, and now their fingers were lacing together and she feels like she could jump up and launch herself to the moon, even though she knows that's not possible. But he's willingly touching her, and that's a bonus.

She wants to say something after they've been in the sun for a few hours, something about sun block and his fair skin, how her tan lines are going to be screwed up if they're here for much longer, she's had to close her eyes to keep out the light, but the sun's setting by the time she opens her eyes to say it, and she realizes she fell asleep on his lap and he didn't say anything. When she looks up into his eyes, he's not really looking at her – he's staring at the sunset, like he's calculating the timing, figuring out exactly when it will reach the horizon. He glances down and sees her eyes open, smiles at her, she pulls herself up out of his lap, shakes the bits of sand from her hair, casually watches the lust in his eyes grow as he sees the blonde strands shaking. But this is Sheldon, and she knows he's not really lusting after her, he's just trying to figure her out.

"You wanna go?" she says, watching his face. She's not sure she wants to leave, but it's getting late and the guys are probably worried, so she figures she'll suggest it. He shakes his head.

"Not yet," he says, and he pulls her back into his embrace.

She knows she gasps when his arms wrap themselves around her waist, is embarrassed a little by her surprise, but she can feel the tension in his arms and knows he's surprised too. He doesn't know what his body's capable of, he's scared by it, and what's more, he doesn't know what he does to her every time he touches her. So when she lets out her little gasp, she tries to cover it by pressing herself into his chest, can almost feel his heartbeat between his chest and her back, feels his fingers grip her hips.

They watch the sun set, the red and yellow touching the purple of the water as little black shapes – the seagulls, Penny guesses – flutter to the sand. Just as it's about to disappear beneath the horizon, Sheldon's arms move and she's cold without his touch. She shifts so she's facing him, ready to ask what he's doing by letting go.

The words melt on her tongue as the fading rays of light dance across the surface of the ring in his fingers.

"Penny," he says as she tries to catch her breath, "I love you. I know I don't say it enough, which, by my research, should be at least four times each day, but I believe you understand my feelings."

"Sheldon," she whispers, blinking rapidly. "This is a little fast, don't you think?"

"We've known each other for five years, Penny," he says, the hint of a smile blossoming on his face. "And we've been in a relationship for six months. I would say we've gotten to know each other well enough for this."

"But we haven't even had sex yet." She's still whispering, doesn't know why, but she's embarrassed that she hasn't spent the night with him yet.

He shrugs. "Although a sexual compatibility is important in a relationship, I don't think it's the most important." When she narrows her eyes and tilts her head just so, he adds, "And I don't think I'll disappoint. I'm a much faster learner than Leonard."

She has to laugh at that, shakes her head. "Honey, I don't know if this is such a good idea. What if we really start to hate each other?"

"Everyone hates his or her partner at some point," he says, shrugging again. "But what matters is that the love is stronger and more meaningful over a longer period of time. For example," he adds because of the disbelief in her eyes, "I hate that you don't organize your soups by name, as I believe they should be. And when you make my cupboards messy because you don't understand my organizational paradigm, I feel a sudden frustration with you. However, I also know that every time I see your smile, I forget about the soups and I remember why I started to fall in love with you in the first place."

He blushes at the last bit, looks down at the towel. She's silent, processing what he just said. He's never told her why he fell in love with her, or how, or why, but she feels like even though he didn't really say it this time, he's just told her everything she needs to know. If this whackadoodle could overcome his need to correct her and reprimand her and criticize her, he had to love her.

And she realizes she should have seen it sooner, because it's always been there. When he said she was attractive so long ago, he meant, "I think you're hot," but couldn't find the words. When he threw Raj out of the group for Kripke – admittedly one of his stupidest ideas – he could have sent her away, he barely knew her, she didn't know his favorite amino acid, but he didn't. Translation: I really like you. But he never knew how to say it. And even now, when he's stumbling over the words and can't quite get it out right, she knows what he means.

So instead of saying something about the relationship not holding up to the test – because she knows it will – she says, "Why you _started_ to fall in love with me?"

He's thoroughly embarrassed, stuttering in Texan, and she hears, "I believe falling in love, like falling in a dream, rarely ends. You simply continue to fall faster and deeper with every passing moment."

He starts to say something else, but her mouth's covering his and she's kissing him like crazy on the beach and he's not saying anything, but she can feel the hand clutching the ring go tight because he's afraid of losing it while the other hand tries to find her back so he can press her tighter to him.

When they finally break apart – which, to be honest, she has to say is the most disappointing thing in the world – he's close to gasping for air, but he's determined, so he slides the ring on her finger and says the four words she's been longing to hear for so long. And when she says yes, he smiles again, brighter than she's ever seen it, and he's starting to say something about how such and such equation represents his happiness when she jumps on him and they're kissing again.

She pulls up for a breath, whispers, "I love you, you crazy kidnapper," into his ear.

He's still smiling when he kisses that spot behind her ear that he loves so much and whispers, "Are you sure it's not Stockholm syndrome?"

* * *

When they get back to the apartment, Leonard's watching Star Trek with Stephanie on the couch. They're just at the moment when Nero's saying, "Fire everything!" when Penny and Sheldon walk in. Leonard looks them over quickly, waves hello, Stephanie's asleep on his arm. But his eyes linger on Penny's hand – he knew it was coming, he'd helped his friend pick out the ring – and he nods silently.

And then he sees the sand in their hair and the way Sheldon's avoiding his eyes because he's too busy staring at Penny with something like newfound admiration, and he realizes that they have something he couldn't have offered her, because he knows the way Sheldon's looking at her is the way he looks at anything he really loves. And maybe he doesn't know how much he cares quite yet, and maybe Penny doesn't realize that she looks at him the same way, but Leonard knows they'll figure it out eventually.

So when Penny kisses Sheldon and tells him to come over to her place later and he turns to his roommate, Leonard smiles and nods again. There's nothing bitter, nothing more to hold onto. Because his best friends were finally together, the way he'd known it was meant to be from the beginning, and he's finally at peace.


End file.
